Election Day

Hey everyone! Election day is coming up! Are you excited? To tell you the truth, I’m not really too terribly stoked about my voting options here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. There’s the Ted Kennedy vs. some-guy-who’s-going-to-lose race that we see (or don’t see, since there are no ads or anything) here every 6 years. There’s the gubernatorial race where Deval Patrick holds a sizable lead over Lt. Gov. Healy. That race seemed at first like it might be somewhat interesting, but for whatever reason, Healy went way overboard with the negative ads and sketchy claims. Polls say that’s just weakened her support even more. You’ve got to give it up to the MA voters for actually realizing that and being turned-off by the negaitivity.

The one mildly interesting thing on the ballot is “question 1,” an initiative to modernize the liquor laws to allow grocery/convenience store businesses to hold multiple liquor licenses. This will have the effect of allowing wine to be sold in grocery stores here. Of course, the liquor-store and liquor-distribution cabal is all up in arms about this. I was in a liquor store (a “packy” as they call them here in the commonwealth) the other day, and there were scary posters on the walls and pamphlets claiming that question 1 will pretty much lead to mobs of boozing underage maniacs, drunk drivers on every street and bodies piling up everywhere. Will selling wine at grocery stores really destroy our normally oh-so-temperate society? This seems kind of questionable. At least where I come from, the grocery stores were always way way way more anal about checking ID and enforcing the law. The weekly dig has a great opinion article on the subject.

And as for the national implications for this election? I can’t lie — the potential for a big change is kind of exciting. Democrats, don’t count all your chickens before they’ve hatched quite yet though; and Republicans, don’t start slinking away or looking for high ledges to jump off of either. We all know about the dubiousness of polls and that a lot can change in one weekend for either side. A great place to follow the “action” is at electoral-vote.com where the votemaster painstakingly collects data from all polls and organizes it into predictions. Here’s where things currently lie, according to him: